125 AD

Pause Game. There is a valley between two plateaus that works well for housing blocks and other city buildings. There are plenty or arrable land split into two areas. The northern one will be enough to supply food and clothing to a city of 7500 citizens.

The resources at hand are very favourable in terms of fast income and placement for export. The forest south of the entrance will supply enough timber for export and the forest to the west of the entrance can be used for future furniture production if needed.

Marble, gold and iron quarries are located very conveniently near a small, flat area south of the larger forest where warehouses will fit perfectly.

The only reasonable place to build factories are on the northern plateau. The area is too irregular for anything else and there's very little room anywhere else. Also, having production of goods close to housing complexes and markets is preferrable.

The only water source is a small pond to the far north-east, which makes it preferrable to start the first housing block near the entrance. After much testing and sometimes restarting the mission I found the following block to be reasonably optimal (I prefer to have non-residential buildings cover as much as possible by surrounding them with houses, not put them on the outside of the blocks).

The block has room for 8 domus and 11 insulae, with 1 clinic taking the place of a 12th insulae. A small area is dedicated to all 5 gods and a fountain. An odeum is placed south of the shrines and a school to the west of it, along with a prefect and an engineer.
A theatre and arena fits well to the west of the housing block, while a library , colosseum and, as the future dictated, a forum goes well south of the housing block. The only real outsiders are the bathhouse and the hospital that I had to place outside the housing block to give the best possible service range.

My plan after building this block was to just duplicate the layout as best as possible as I developed Ephesus.

I immediately opened trade to Sardinia and Syria. I set the exports of marble to 65 so that my warehouse(s) would always be full when Caesar demanded shipment. All of the timber and iron went to exports.

I set the export restrictions in the advisory screen to 5 clothing, 0 Jewelry, 5 iron, 55 weapons. The import restrictions was set to 5 pottery, 5 olives. I also set all of the exotic goods to import only if I had less than 2 units in stock.

Unpause game. I let the year go by watching my population rise and opened up my services one by one as soon as I had enough workers (not gold). I also built a clothing factory and sold the goods to expand insulae.

126 AD

The first demand for marble comes in February. I ignored it to let the stocks build up and allow for some income to generate after storing the 65th unit. During the year 3 more clothing factories were built, a utensils factory (mothballed), 2 more marble quarries (4 total) and 1 more timber camp (5 total). I shipped the marble at the end of the year.

127 AD

Both gold mines opened up to start stockpiling in preparation for a request from Rome later in the year. I set up 3 weapons factories in preparation for another request from Rome. During the year the utensils factory was put to use and sold goods to the citizens. I built 2 more iron camps (4 total) to keep up with exports. I opened the trade route to Latium, built the trade post near my clothing factories and started exporting clothing above a stock of 5. The farmland expanded with 2-3 vegetable and grain farms each. I also started importing pottery to expand my insulaes to get more workers.

128 AD

My funds were pretty much shot at the start of the year. The exports of weapons started as soon as I had a stockpile of 55 and I spent the rest of the year watching my funds build up again. I sent my stock of gold to Rome before the deadline. In November Rome sent a request for weapons, which I waited to send, and in December raiders were at my city borders. I bribed them (4000 Dn).

129 AD

In January Rome demanded another shipment of marble. Having an abundance of it I sent the shipment straight away. I spent the year developing my first housing block while planning for the second area to the south-west. I built a school, barber and bathhouse for block 1 and started adding 1-2 insulae to housing block 2. All of the actions were done in unison with increasing my population/workforce. I built a cattle farm to be ready for my future villas.I sent Rome my weapons before the deadline later in the year.

130 AD

In February Rome sent a request for armour. I decided not to produce any. My rating was pretty much secure already and I would have no use for the factories afterwards. Instead I expanded my utensils production with 2 more factories (3 total) and also built 3 jewelry factories* and exported the goods.Rome sent a request for marble in April that was taken care of. In August raiders were at my city borders and I bribed them with 3000 Dn.

131-136 AD

Nothing extraordinary happend except taking care of all but one demand/request from Rome (marble, gold, weapons, not armour) and a single raider band in 133 AD. My income rose steadily and I slowly expanded my city south-east.I deliberately waited to build villas until now because I wanted a steady flow or food to reach my granaries and markets.

2 of the 4 marble quarries were mothballed because they were not needed anymore. I built 2 more iron mines (6 total) to increase export. I started importing olives and also set up 3 olive oil factories for my villas. 3 furniture factories were built and 2 more timber camps (7 total) was added to the northern forest.

Once my funds reached 20,000 Dn I started building my city walls so that my domus would expand to the fullest. I also started importing all of the exotic goods for the villas - one at a time. In hindsight I should've just imported all at once and let them sort out distribution themselves. They're good at that!

The last two years was spent calculating exactly how many more insulaes and domus I would need to fill up the last 1500 citizens and planning the very last bit of my city. I ended up with a small insulae block just west of my mines and a short row of domus just north of the circus. In the end I had perfect coverage of all buildings except 1 insulae that had trouble finding food.

* It is possible that I built a jewelry factory as early as 127 or 128 AD. I replayed the city 3 times after noticing problems with my city structure.